Professor Jonathan J. Webster is Head of the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics at the City University of Hong Kong. He is also the Managing Editor of the International Linguistics Association’s journal WORD, and the editor of the forthcoming Journal of World Languages (2014). M.A.K. Halliday was Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney.

'These four volumes (4,5,6 and 7) venture into remarkably diverse fields. How one man could master the minutiae of all these areas of linguistic research is a matter for wonder and admiration. As a linguistic polymath, Halliday far outstrips all contemporaries...One need look for no further explanation of Halliday's current stature as doyen of British linguistics. The publication of Halliday's complete papers is an important contribution to scholarly documentation.'

• Part 1 Infancy and protolanguageEditor's Introduction1 Representing the child as semiotic being: meaning and moving in the earliest months of life2 Learning how to mean3 Early language learning: a sociolinguistic approach4 A sociosemiotic perspective on language development5 One child's protolanguage6 Meaning and the construction of reality in early childhood7 The ontogenesis of dialoguePart 2 Transition from child tongue to mother tongueEditor's Introduction8 Into the adult language9 On the development of texture in child language10 The contribution of developmental linguistics to the interpretation of language as a system11 On the transition from child tongue to mother tongue12 Language as code and language as behaviour: a systemic-functional interpretation of the nature and ontogenesis of dialogue13 The place of dialogue in childen's construction of meaningPart 3 Early language and learningEditor's Introduction14 Relevant models of language 15 The social context of language development16 Three aspects of children's language development: learning language, learning through language, learning about language17 Towards a language-based theory of learning18 Grammar and the construction of educational knowledge